A white supremacist who got permanently banned on Twitter attempted a comeback and failed

Last week, signaling upcoming major policy changes, Twitter suspended or removed verified badges from the profiles of several users who habitually engage in white supremacist rhetoric and hateful speech. One of these users was Tim Gionet, more commonly known online as “Baked Alaska,” who was permanently banned from the platform on November 15. Gionet regularly tweeted about the “persecution of white people,” as Gizmodo put it, and his tweets often contained neo-Nazi imagery and Hitler apologism. Though Twitter did not comment specifically on Gionet’s suspension, its spokesperson pointed Mashable to the company’s “hateful conduct policy,” specifically the section that mentions “repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone."

On November 20, Gionet took to Gab, the social media platform dubbed a “haven for white nationalists” (and a common destination for users complaining about Twitter), to share a new “secret” Twitter account he had created, smartly named @notbakedalaska:

Twitter still has a long way to go when it comes to dealing with the hate speech, harassment, and other abuserampant on the platform, including by better clarifying its terms of service and policies to define these violations. But kicking out the most blatantly toxic elements is a pretty good start.

On February 21, CNN will host a town hall on gun violence set to include a wide spectrum of people affected by the Parkland, FL, school shooting. The National Rifle Association was invited to participate and chose to send its national spokesperson, Dana Loesch, to join "students, parents and community members" at the event, breaking with its decision to not participate in a similar 2016 CNN town hall. The NRA’s decision to send Loesch, who is also a far-right conservative commentator with a long history of inflammatory rhetoric, to represent the organization in a town hall discussion about gun safety and legislation that includes survivors of a mass school shooting, clearly demonstrates the extremist, fringe views the NRA has embraced to advance its cause.